More Than a Loaf of Bread

“Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.” (Joh 6:68 AV)

 

Most of us know the question and immediate context of Peter’s response.  After Jesus’ sermon on being the bread of life and telling His congregation they must eat His flesh and drink His blood, many were offended at these words and the vast majority left Him.  He meant them metaphorically, of course.  Jesus then asked His disciples if they were going to leave as well.  We see Peter’s response above.  However, the Spirit gave me a new appreciation of the question and following response which I have never seen before.  The broader context has to do with the feeding of the five thousand and what the crowd did after their tummies were full.  After the LORD feeds the five thousand, the crowd are attempting to make Him king (Jn 6:15).  The crowd follows Him to His secluded mountain place and this is when He shares His ‘bread of life’ discourse.  The reason they want to make Him King is because He fed them with next to nothing.  This is verified in verse twenty-six of the same chapter.  He took care of their physical needs in a miraculous way and if He is King, He would continue to do so.  At least that was the thought.  Then comes the ‘Bread of Life’ sermon.  This is why Peter’s response is so profound.  In the light of Jesus just preaching the bread of life which He offers is far more important than the physical needs of the people, Jesus intimates He may not miraculously provide for the physical needs of the people, yet still implores them to remain.  Peter’s confession, in essence, is a statement that the spiritual far outweigh the physical and the remain committed to Christ because eternal life matters more than physical life.

One of the biggest heresies, if I can call it that, to come down the pike of Christianity is the idea of market-driven principles of church growth.  The guru of this movement, although not the originator of it, is the author of Purpose Driven Church, Rick Warren.  I have read that book and have it in my library.  The premise of the entire philosophy is found in the feeding of the seven thousand or five thousand.  The idea goes that if you meet a perceived emotional or physical need, it opens the door to introducing the true spiritual need of Christ.  The author goes so far as to use the feeding of the thousands as an example of Christ meeting a physical need so He can meet a spiritual need.  The problem with Rick’s reasoning is he reverses the order of events.  Jesus taught first.  He always taught first.  Then He rewarded their commitment by meeting a physical need.  When we seek to meet a physical need first, the physical need becomes the priority over the spiritual need.  When the physical need is met, then the spiritual need is abandoned.

What I find in our present generation is an obsession with the temporal things of life to the exclusion of the spiritual.  Peter knew what Jesus was intimating.  If He never fed them again, would they still follow?  If the three children of Israel were thrown into the burning fiery furnace, would they still refuse to bow down to an idol?  If Peter and his company were threatened with jail, would they still preach the gospel?  If we were to lose our job because we wouldn’t compromise our biblically-based principles, would we compromise or would we do the right thing?  If it meant we had to go without or fear going without necessities, would we still tithe?  If we were faced with the possibility of encountering danger while reaching the world with the gospel of Christ, would we still go?  If we had to rick safety and security to obey the LORD, would we?  If there were no promises, would we still follow Christ?  Today, most commitment is conditionally based.  Sometimes that is ok.  Open commitment in all things is not necessarily biblical or wise.  But I find it has gotten to an extreme.  The reason the crowd was so offended was their thinking was limited to the temporal.  They could not see what they could not see.  Their vision went only so far as their dinner table.  They could not see there were bigger things out there than their immediate physical needs.  This is the difference between someone who will follow Christ to the ends of the world and those who will only follow until their next guarantee.